


Cherish

by Cumberbatch Critter (ivelostmyspectacles)



Series: Tumblr Drabbles [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky + happiness is my OTP, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Captain America: Civil War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 14:56:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6083985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivelostmyspectacles/pseuds/Cumberbatch%20Critter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky smiled.</p><p>It wasn't a big smile. It wasn't even a small smile, really, just a twitch at the corner of his mouth that quickly disappeared behind bruised fingers as he propped his hand in front of his face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cherish

Steve didn't remember what it was that had been said. Who said it. He didn't even remember what his train of thought had been, what he was going to say.

Because in the midst of whatever he had been saying, whatever Sam had been talking about, or what Natasha had been replying to -

Bucky smiled.

It wasn't a big smile. It wasn't even a small smile, really, just a twitch at the corner of his mouth that quickly disappeared behind bruised fingers as he propped his hand in front of his face.

But Bucky _smiled_ , and all Steve could do was stare.

Stare at him, because Buck didn't smile, hadn't smiled, not that Steve had noticed - and Steve noticed - since before Steve had met him on that bridge. Steve hadn't forgotten what Bucky's smile looked like, he never would, but... meeting the Winter Soldier, fighting him, waking up in a hospital and going through the file meticulously, searching him out to find _Bucky_ , the Bucky he had known, Bucky, battered and beaten, who could tell him his mother's name and his favorite food and what he had liked to do in his free time. In all of that time, up to now, when Sam and Natasha were calling him Bucky, too, and not just ‘the Soldier’, Buck hadn't smiled.

But he had now.

And no, Steve couldn't remember who had been talking or what they had been saying, but it didn't _matter_ , because whatever got that little smile on Bucky's face was worth it.

Bucky noticed his staring, head tilting a fraction and eyes sliding to meet his gaze. The hand that had gone to cover his mouth slid down to prop up his chin; the smile was already gone, but there was a certain, gentle mirth in his friend's eyes that Steve hadn't seen in... seen in decades. Something that he thought he would never see again.

This was real.

Steve had to remind himself to breathe. He smiled back at Bucky, lopsided and full of emotion he couldn't describe, but it was _good_ , good emotion, the best he had felt in years.

Sam was speaking in the background, and Bucky's eyes darted away without further pause, back into whatever conversation they had been having, wedging himself firmly back into the life he was still getting used to.

A life Steve hadn't thought possible, and, oh hell, how much he had longed to see Bucky, see Bucky with that gentle look on his face, ever since the day where he had thought it was gone forever.

It was back now, here in front of him, something Steve could reach out and touch and see with his own eyes. No matter what happened, he wasn't going to let anything happen to that. He wasn't going to let someone take that away from him this time.

For both his sake and Bucky's, Steve would make sure Bucky had reason to smile.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Like I mentioned over on Tumblr, my only knowledge of Steve and Buck is from tWS... I didn't even know that was the second movie, so now I gotta watch tFA. And the other movies to get more background for CW. x'D I'm trying okay I just want Buck and Steve to be happy T_T
> 
> I do not own _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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